82년생 김지영

Review

I read this book as it is so well known and controversial in Korea. I certainly don't regret reading it, but I think it somewhat fails as a novel. I just read another famous novel that I think is something of a literary failure, Train Man but Kim Jiyoung's failures were a bit more surprising to me. The chief reason the book's problems surprised me is how brilliant the opening chapter is. It's really good! It quickly establishes the characters, the situation they find themselves in, and has a mystery not easily explained through conventional, "real world" logic. Things go downhill from there. The bulk of the book is covering Kim Jiyoung's life from birth to motherhood. And the writing of these chapters just does not work. The struggles women face in Korea are a very interesting topic to me. And that is the true subject of these chapters. Kim Jiyoung is less a character and more a vehicle for recounting the endless slights, indignities, and denials of opportunity women in Korea face. And the core problem with the novel is many pages feel like lists of discriminatory behavior. This is compounded by the constant use of statistics and footnotes to back them up. And when reading a novel, seeing statistics on the percentage of female class presidents, women's wages, and part time work by mothers does not draw me into the narrative. Further removing the reader from the narrative are the footnotes used to back these up. After not so casually dropping some numbers in the middle of a page there will be a footnote with the source for that statistic. The book would have greatly benefited from skipping the statistics and including an appendix covering data to back up it's core message. Even switching from footnotes to endnotes would have helped. For prose that is heavy on listing grievances the constant insertion of statistics is the nail in the coffin. Which is not to say the book fails to convey the core message. But far more effective than the statistics or more blunt examples are the smaller moments. Some have really stuck with me, she and her sister being praised for their accomplishments, her brother for his gender. Thanks to progress on gender issues she's forced to mark a form saying her baby will take the father's name. The most impactful to me was the inevitable and slow bending of her life to societal expectations. She doesn't want to become a housewife but it's what makes the most sense. She chooses it willingly, due to circumstance, but she hates that. While reading the middle chapters I was buoyed at the thought of returning to the present day and the circumstances we left in the first chapter. And in that I was disappointed. The first chapter was brilliant, the middle chapters a slog. And the ending chapter isn't much of anything. A new character is introduced and relays to us what is now happening with Kim Jiyoung. I'm not sure the conclusion of the narrative is unsatisfying but how it is conveyed is. It feels like a device introduced to again show how women must give up their ambition, a message already well conveyed by the preceding chapters and Kim Jiyoung. In the end I must say I was disappointed. I am very glad the book was written and became a big deal in Korea. I don't regret reading it. But as a novel I don't think it's very good. While there are a number of very effective and well written sections that get the author's message across, they feel lost in the sea of enumerated slights and statistics.

Consumption history1

1. Apr 4, 2021

   Completed★ 2 / 5

   physical